Category: Reginald Gibbons

by Reginald Gibbons

The faintest sound—

the fingertip of a leaf touching

the windowpane, or a tiny

spring trickling over pebbles,

or droplets of light rain

on the forehead of my childhood . . .

The lightest caress—

bare feet in summer on a soft dirt path,

a hand that attempts for the first time

desire’s touch,

or the clean darkness lying light

as a bedsheet over one’s sleepless self. . .

A nameless fervor within me

so often doesn’t seem to be

mine yet is me.

Nearly everything near or far

that reaches toward me soothes

me and wounds me. You—

your presence, even though it’s

not my life, is my life.

The way two unnoticed leaves can be

proof of the world’s breath.

–Luis Cernuda (1931)

from RenditionsFind more by Reginald Gibbons at the library

Copyright © 2021 Reginald Gibbons
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

by Reginald Gibbons

Across fields of native weeds holding their breath,

and cows breathing,

we escaped as far as a stand of slow-fleeing trees.

Screaming more and more, the devoted, hardworking

ambulances nearby began

rushing away toward ERs and then to gasoline bars.

We lay down on our frightened raincoats.

Our shadows among the oaks

remained on tiptoe, on watch in all directions.

We lay there till in moonlit midnight came more

assault-rifle shooting elsewhere.

The wind winged away gasping and hid in ditches

with the surviving children, the ditches

dug themselves deeper into

clayey dread, and dark ravines crowded up into

our helpless thoughts, and memories of

earlier times of such chaos

rushed through you. And then, deep into interior

rifts of the earth your innerness, too, fled.

I followed, looking back.

Everyone’s lungs were bleating like smoke alarms—

but softly. And we keep hearing a command

to forget. But to forget

would mean not helping everyone survive.

–after Yehuda Amichai

from RenditionsFind more by Reginald Gibbons at the library

Copyright © 2021 Reginald Gibbons
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

by Reginald Gibbons

One afternoon it comes to him that his arms are

no better than clouds—

it’s not possible to hold the body

you desire, or hold onto the hopes

you had. Not possible not to let go.

Fate can go bed-checking

the summer-sky constellations with an astral

clipboard in its hand,

but here what he needs

is arms at least

as strong as the wind from the sea.

And a kiss as immersing as the sea.

But what does he do? With his

inherited lips all he does is speak

words: words to the ceiling,

words to the floor,

words to his scribbled page on which

he’s crossed them all out.

And as he angles, drifting,

under his own low sky, he can see right

through his reaching

cloud arms, his cloud hands.

–Luis Cernuda (1929)

from RenditionsFind more by Reginald Gibbons at the library

Copyright © 2021 Reginald Gibbons
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

by Reginald Gibbons

Verde que te quiero verde even when

dying can be, can yet become, a green

plenitude—the jade the pine the fern the mint.

We can breathe the green breath of your lines, green shade

may somehow fade bereavement away, while in

your words live the sixty shades of green that words

can see, words that bleed green, words that your pen-nib

dance-drags in green dust under the olive trees,

as you throw song-notes at their silver-green leaves

and end your stanzas with green razor blades—

your verde so clack-heeled, your swarms of midnight

palmas clapped with such exuberance of green

anguish and joy, your vowels so green in guitar-

light rasgueados—in leaf-thrashing wind-lashed

frenzy, frenesí, to hear again that your

voice cannot not matter . . . ¿No ves la herida

que tengo—he imagines a knife-wound from

his chest to his throat—desde el pecho a la

garganta? Now he stands one finite instant

from the bullets, with his betrayed companion—

a teacher, also to be murdered—and two

more. Now the uncanny presence of the scent

of basil and the word’s green sound: albahaca

(al-habáqah) . . . We so need a billion dawn

hours—albas—of love. But I’m no longer I

pero yo ya no soy yo nor is this house

any longer my house ni mi casa es

ya mi casa. We so want him to have lived.

His house, his piano—unbetrayed, not deceived . . .

But he was nilled and annulled so long ago.

Verde que te quiero verde we still chant

in la nada que no y la nada que sí.

–for Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (1898-1936)

from RenditionsFind more by Reginald Gibbons at the library

Copyright © 2021 Reginald Gibbons
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

by Reginald Gibbons

A guy goes by with a long loaf of bread on his human shoulder.

And after that I’m going to write about my doppelgänger?

In the alley, I see a girl looking for meat scraps and orange rinds.

Is now when I’m supposed to write about the Infinite?

Another guy, sitting on the curb, scratches himself, nabs a louse

in his armpit, smashes it. And we’re going to chat about psychoanalysis?

A homeless woman’s sidewalk-sleeping—her foot’s behind her back!

And I’m going to meet a friend so we can talk about Picasso?

Some other guy, swinging a stick at my bones, has invaded my body.

So then, later, at the doctor’s, I’m going to talk about investments?

This crippled dude goes wobbling by with a big kid, arm in arm.

And after that—what? I’m going to read the art reviews?

Someone is shuddering in the dark. Coughing, spitting blood.

When exactly would it be appropriate to theorize the Inner Self?

A roofer falls, he dies, and from now on he goes without lunch.

So now I’m going to invent some flashy new poetic effects?

This diamonds-bought-and-sold guy—he uses rigged scale weights.

So . . . make sure everybody at the opera sees that you’re weeping?

Too near my building, this skinny guy deals heroin laced with fentanyl.

Is this really the time to take alien sperm and astral travel seriously?

The old couple at a funeral, crying as they walk holding hands—

and what’s the protocol when you’re voted into the Academy?

Sitting at the kitchen table, somebody’s lovingly cleaning his handgun.

What exactly is the good of talking about where we go after we die?

A girl’s run over by a local Nazi aiming his station wagon at her.

And we have to hear about “very nice people on both sides” and not scream?

A neighborhood granny goes by counting something on her fingers.

And the biggies are saying we must make sure the banks are OK?

–after César Vallejo (1937)

from RenditionsFind more by Reginald Gibbons at the library

Copyright © 2021 Reginald Gibbons
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.

by Reginald Gibbons

overpowers not just

and unjust human beings

only, but animals

too—and even the breath of

gods trembles, shakes, stops, bursts,

when Eros wings into them,

even from far away,

at their culmination. Great

Zeus Himself retreats some-

times from the overthrowing

comeliness of mortal

bodies. He Himself is far

too weak—even He!—to

ward off Eros. Even He

wants, more than anything,

anything, just to give in.

–Sophocles (5th century BCE)

from RenditionsFind more by Reginald Gibbons at the library

Copyright © 2021 Reginald Gibbons
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.